The Education of Sarah
by nikkilittle
Summary: The Cheshire Cat teaches Hatter's new wife the ways of Wonderland. Alternate Universe with a modern, American Alice in a real Wonderland.


The Education of Sarah

by Nikki Little

"That girl's gotta go!" screeched Mr. White in a Wonderland Committee meeting. He turned around and waved his cotton-gauze-wrapped tail in the air. A gnome nurse slowly unwrapped the bloody gauze revealing a bullet hole clean through Mr. White's tail. Mr. White was, of course, screeching about Hatter's new wife. It seems that Sarah was not adjusting too well to Wonderland's vegetarian diet and had decided to go hunting with the rifle that she had brought with her. Everyone looked at me. When something goes wrong in Wonderland, everyone just assumes that I was around to witness it. Being able to appear and disappear at will is not always a blessing.

"Yes, of course I saw it," I said. "Sarah was stumbling through Wonderland Woods muttering to herself and looking bleary-eyed. She is also looking quite a bit thinner than when she arrived. She saw Mr. White, screeched something about a moose, and blasted him. She ran up to inspect her kill, but Mr. White surprised her. He jumped up and ran off. Sarah was mumbling something about Wonderland having very strange moose that hop like bunnies. I think she was hallucinating. Withdrawal, perhaps."

"Withdrawal?" Caterpillar looked disturbed. "She's not a drug addict of some sort is she?"

"Mooseburgers," I said. "The girl's a carnivore. Wonderland is going to be quite a shock to her diet." Suddenly I was grateful to be a bag of bones. I wouldn't be much of a meal even to someone who was desperate for some meat. "Couldn't the gnomes spare a goat or two every month so Sarah can have some meat?"

Caterpillar's eyes brightened. "Yes, of course. I'm sure that would be the best solution for all. Two goats a month for Sarah. I'm sure, Cheshire, that she'd be willing to share some with you. She may be a Republican, but somewhere inside, I'm sure she is capable of gratitude."

Now I was feeling a little ticked off. "You're willing to spare two goats a month for Sarah, but all this time you've let me, Wonderland's only other carnivore, practically starve trying to survive on snarks. I'm feeling a little bit disturbed here. Is Sarah special and I'm not?"

"You never asked," said Caterpillar. "Actually, you didn't need to ask. The second law of Wonderland is 'Take what you need.' Had you forgotten?" As usual, Caterpillar was right. I was so used to hunting for food that the idea of killing a domestic goat had never occurred to me. The problem of meat for Wonderland's two carnivores was solved at that meeting. Caterpillar charged me with educating Hatter's new wife with the ways of Wonderland. Hatter couldn't stand to watch her eat because her table manners were like a Viking, so I ended up being Sarah's dinner companion when she ate goat. I have to admit it was quite a novelty for me to have company at dinner.

After our first meal of goat together, I took Sarah to the old faded wooden sign near the Rabbit Hole that had the Three Laws of Wonderland carved into it.

THE THREE LAWS OF WONDERLAND

SHARE WHAT YOU HAVE

TAKE WHAT YOU NEED

BE KIND

That was it. The sum of all our laws. Sarah was astonished. "We have laws in the world above that fill thick books. Volume after volume of laws so complex we need lawyers just to tell us what they mean."

"We don't have money or private ownership of anything except personal articles in Wonderland. Because we share almost everything, the concept of theft barely exists. Also, because we share almost everything, the endless conflict between people that exists in the world above because they compete against each other for everything does not occur here. No one here is deprived of what they need. You would find that sharing would solve most of the world's problems above."

Sarah stared at me blankly. "I've been wondering just how things are distributed here. Hatter has kept me mostly at his Castle, and I haven't gotten out much. No money? Really?"

"That's right. No money. No theft. No police. No lawyers. No prisoners. No locks. No insurance companies. No security guards. No military. No corporations. No poverty. No want. This place may look primitive, but compared to the world above, it is paradise."

Sarah was just beginning to understand what a special place Wonderland was. She stared at the faded letters of the sign. "When was that sign posted?" she asked.

"That sign was posted about thirty years ago at the end of Wonderland's Civil War. We overthrew our tyrannical Queen of Hearts and Red Queen who together claimed ownership of just about everything in Wonderland. Everyone had to work for them to earn money to purchase basic necessities. The two Queens set wages very low and prices very high. Everyone worked like slaves just for the basic necessities. The two Queens had a monster called the Jabberwock to enforce their will and an army of Card Guards at their disposal. A wondrous creature of Wonderland called Gryphon, a sort of combination of a lion and an eagle, started a rebellion. The Mock Turtle joined him, then Caterpillar, then Mr. White, then me, then all the inhabitants of Pale Realm, and finally an underground army of gnomes. Alice dropped down the Rabbit Hole right in the middle of our civil war. She was led by Mr. White to Caterpillar and joined us. She was eighteen years old then and had just escaped from an insane asylum. She had no love of the world above. She preferred our civil war. At first she was so inept in combat that we were all sure she'd blow herself up with a jackbomb. She kept straggling back into the gnome village with her clothes half burnt off and her eyebrows missing because she had gotten too close to a jackbomb that she had just thrown. Caterpillar wanted to have her wait out the civil war in his Oracle Cave, but Alice insisted on continuing. She kept getting better and better, and when the Jabberwock killed Gryphon in a now-famous battle, Alice took over as our field commander. A month later, an army of White chess pieces and gnomes led by Alice broke into the Castle in Red Realm and killed the two Queens. It was Alice who suggested abolishing money in Wonderland. The 'Three Laws of Wonderland' were her idea. Not bad for an insane nutjob, wouldn't you say?"

"She sounds like a communist," said Sarah.

"Alice is too poorly educated to be a communist. She realized that if all of us continued in the roles we had played before and shared our talents and what we produced with everyone else in Wonderland, there would be no shortages of anything for anybody. She pointed out that Wonderland's money was a pure abstraction created by the two Queens for the purpose of controlling everyone else. She asked why we needed money to exchange goods and services with each other. Why not just share? Caterpillar at first thought she was crazy, but we all discussed her ideas and realized that they made at least as much sense, if not more sense, than the system of distribution by prices and money from before. Alice had a question that is now famous: 'Why must there be a price on everything?' Caterpillar, at that point, started to believe that Alice might be a genius in spite of her poor education. In the end, we abolished money just as Alice suggested. Look around you. Do you see here the kind of unhappiness and misery that is so abundant in the world above?"

"No one looks miserable here, except for you. You look like you've been starving."

"Gee, thanks. Nice of you to tell me how unhandsome I am." I decided to show Sarah the Vale and Wonderland Woods. "Come with me. Let's take a walk."

When we reached the Vale, Sarah looked around and noticed Walnut and fruit trees everywhere. "To a large extent, Wonderland is a hunter-gatherer society. Food grows wild everywhere here. Giant mushrooms are abundant in patches here and there. The mushrooms, as you've already discovered, are our staple food here in Wonderland. Unfortunately, one of the species of mushrooms is dangerous. Our largest species of mushroom is the appropriately named 'Killer Mushroom.' Think of it as a mushroom version of the Venus Flytrap. If you you get too close to one, it will suddenly fold its cap around you and drench you in acid. Then it eats you at its leisure. The Killer Mushrooms are probably the reason Hatter has kept you at his Castle and nearby area. You should never have been hunting in Wonderland Woods alone. You sneaked off didn't you?"

"Yes, I did. I couldn't help it. I just had to have some moose." Sarah did not register that hunting for moose in Wonderland Woods was absurd.

"You were hunting for some moose, so you shot a hole through Mr. White's tail."

"Well, he was about the same size as a moose!"

"Sarah, Mr. White is nearly all white, has big ears, a twitchy nose, walks upright mostly, and hops when he runs. How could you mistake him for a moose?"

"Ummmm... I was delirious with hunger." It quickly became apparent that Sarah couldn't tell a convincing lie to save her life. Being a cat has certain advantages. One of them is that no one expects me to be well-mannered. I can get away with things that no one else in Wonderland can get away with -- not even Alice. I grabbed Sarah's purse without warning and began rifling through the contents while she squealed like a mouse that was stuck in a glue trap. Just as I had suspected. Sarah had discovered the wonders of a certain weed that grew wild throughout Wonderland Woods. Down here in Wonderland we called it "Wonderland Weed." It's especially remarkable for its potency. Great for inducing hallucinations. Like hallucinations of moose running around in Wonderland Woods. "You smoked up and were flying higher than Alice on the vines in these woods. You wanted to see a moose and that's what you saw when the first moving creature crossed your path. You were so high you would have mistaken a boojum for a moose. You're going to have to give up your rifle until you show yourself to be responsible." I snatched the rifle from Sarah and escorted her back to Hatter's Castle. I took the rifle to Caterpillar's Oracle Cave and stashed it in with Alice's Eyestaff. Caterpillar took a moment to rib me about my increasing stature as a "responsible" citizen of Wonderland. Ouch. That made me feel like I was losing my roguish reputation. "Responsible." Hmmmmmph!

A few days later I took Sarah into Wonderland Woods with Arianne's souvenir machetes from Hell for some practice in slaying killer mushrooms. It didn't take long for Sarah to develop an accurate aim with the machetes. It turned out that she was nearly as effective as Alice at short and medium range. Sarah also turned out to be quite fearless. She actually wanted to kill the mushrooms up close slashing at them with the machetes. It took some doing on my part to convince her that it was a good idea to keep your distance from the mushrooms. I had gathered up some nasty-smelling roadkill from uptop for demonstration purposes and tossed a dead possum under a killer mushroom. The mushroom sprang into life just as I expected. It drenched the possum with acid and proceeded to "inhale" it. And about a minute later the killer mushroom horked up the possum. Sarah did not see anything amusing about this, but I could not contain myself. Within two months Sarah was matching Alice in gathering killer mushrooms. Damn! We could have used this machete-tossing lunatic during the civil war. She might have been a second Alice. Who could have ever guessed that a Republican from the world above would turn out to be good for anything?

As the months went by, Sarah and I developed the habit of eating together as we were the only two carnivores in Wonderland. Neither one of us had table manners to speak of, but of the two of us, Sarah was definitely the worse. I began to wonder if she ate her moose in the world above raw. Anyway, as I took Sarah on killer mushroom hunting trips in Wonderland Woods and introduced her to the other areas of Wonderland, she gradually came to accept living in a society without money. Giving away her catch in the open-air market in the Gnome Village by simply leaving it to be taken, the same as Alice did, ceased to bother her as she became accustomed to being able to take whatever she needed without ever offering payment of any kind. Just how our system of everyone playing their role and contributing their part actually worked was a mystery to Sarah, but it was no mystery to me. The system in the world above of putting a price on everything, insuring it, keeping it behind locks, having police guard everything, having judges, lawyers, and jails to deal with anyone who doesn't want to pay or can't pay, and having prisons for all the miscreants who have the nerve to think that necessities are a right or who just want to toke up struck me as the real insanity. I still find it impossible to fathom the sheer cost of enforcing distribution of goods through price. Wouldn't it be cheaper and more efficient to just give people what they need? Sarah argued with me at first that our system was insane, but as she looked around her and saw that our system somehow functioned, she gradually learned to relax and accept the idea that she did not have to do everything at a lightning pace and do it perfectly. The values of the world above -- where private property and efficiency are everything -- were utterly foreign to the population of Wonderland.

Well, every story needs an ending, and this one is no exception. Sarah is now a respected member of the community and -- very important -- keeps Hatter happy in bed. I even gave Sarah her rifle back. About twice a week Sarah and I meet deep in Wonderland Woods on the border to Queensland where she uses the occasional boojum that pops up for target practice. We toke up and share a small flask of Old Bill's Walnut Brandy. When the flask is empty, we share a few other things, as well. Heh, heh, heh... Sorry, Hatter, but three times a week isn't enough for Sarah. You're going to have to get in better shape, old pal. In the meantime, I'm more than happy to take up the "slack."

The End

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This story is based on the characters created by American McGee. Electronic Arts (EA) owns the copyrights. Also a nod to James Hilton's "Lost Horizon."


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